It is best for religions to incorporate science into their theology. It is very
damaging for religions to "disprove" basic scientific principles using
junk science or scriptural arguments. It only damages their credibility.

I have friends and family who make the ridiculous claim that the earth
is old 6000 years old. This can easily be debunked by looking at locations
where tree ring dating can go back 10,000 years!

I had religious
biology teachers at the "U", and I don't see any BYU science
professors arguing that creation "science" or "young earth"
geology be taught at BYU.

Two problems exist; False science and false religions. True religion and true
science are completely compatible. My religion teaches me that I don't have
to believe anything that is not true. That's why I embrace it!

You can't say on the one hand
that science is the only way to understand the physical universe and then do a
slight of hand and imply we humans are not part of that physical universe
because we are not to be understood by science alone.

That's
simply picking an choosing what science you want to believe the very thing your
article is arguing against.

One of the major problems with choosing
a view of humanity other than the scientific one is which one. There are
conflicting religious views all claiming authority for their view. Culture and
training make that choice for most of us. Science is the only view that is not
tainted with prejudice.

Science and progress of mankind go hand in hand, with religion usually playing
catchup, facing dwindling numbers of adherents.

Galileo backed the
idea that the sun revolves around the sun, not vice versa, and was imprisoned
for life, with the Catholic church apologizing 500 years later.

In
the information age, things have accelerated. Those who think the Earth is 6000
years old might as well believe in a flat Earth, too, and avoid getting on
airplanes. They are proof that dinosaurs live among us.

The current
debate includes same sex attraction, with religions playing catchup and being
left behind again, trying to keep things together as younger generations teeter
on leaving the club because of something that appears obvious, were it not for
religions trying to control everything.

RE: "In order to accept the scientific method, they must abandon the beliefs
of their community"....

I don't agree with their assumption
that you must abandon your religious beliefs to accept the scientific
explanation for the creation of our universe.

I've always
thought however our universe was created... it was by natural means. Meaning
scientifically explainable means. More advanced science than we can
understand... but "Science" none the less.

When God said
"Let there be light"... I never assumed he just flipped a light switch
on.

I assume that he used science, physics, chemistry, nuclear
physics, etc, and in a very advanced knowledge of science to it's very
core... he coordinated the big bang to result in our universe (and countless
other universes out there).

To him... our understanding of Science...
is like an infants.

Expecting us to understand how he did it
(scientifically) would be like expecting a baby who can't even talk yet to
understand how an airplane was built, or how nuclear fission works.

Strong personal emotions, even when popular and shared within your community,
are not evidence of truth.

If the concept of honesty and humility
matter at all to you, then you have to look at the evidence the universe puts in
front of you and let the objective evidence speak for itself, even when (in
fact, _especially_ when) that evidence contradicts your personal beliefs.

These are objectively established facts for which there is no more
controversy than the direction a rock falls when released from a height:

The universe is ~14 billion years old. The Earth is ~4.5 billion
years old. Humans and chimpanzees have >98% the same DNA because both
species share a distant (millions of years ago) common genetic ancestor.

That's all established reality.

If you want to imagine
that the universe began as a thought in the mind of a supernatural creator,
fine, go ahead. But if you want to imagine an inscrutable, capricious,
supernatural being who controls the weather, decides which sick child lives and
which sick child dies, who wins the lottery and who loses everything in an
earthquake, then you're embracing an endless, dishonest, and above all, a
losing battle with reality.

Re: the idea of a universe that began in a flash that flung stars, galaxies and
clusters of galaxies across the vast canvas of space is, to put it mildly,
compatible with Jewish and Christian belief: "Let there be light."

Michael Gerson makes a good point. In fact, the concept of an instant
creation shows up often in the scriptures. A few examples: 1. "I am the same
which spake, and the world was made" (D&C 38:3) 2. "Praise ye him,
sun and moon: praise him, all ye stars of light. . . . for he commanded, and
they were created." (Psalms 148:3,5) 3. "Wherefore, if God being able to
speak and the world was . . . " Jacob 4: 9)

On the other hand,
the accounts of the Creation in Genesis, Moses, Abraham and in LDS temple films
contradict one another on key points and simply aren't very credible.

I might add
-- The word "Abracadabra" is aramaic for "by my words, I
create"it is derived from Hebrew - 'ebra kidebra' which
translates: "it came to pass as it was spoken."and Hebrew for;Ab(Father), Ben(Son) and Ruach A Cadsch(HolySpirit).

In scriptures
-- we learn All things were created by God's "word".John
1:1In the beginning was the Word...and the Word was God.And God SAID
_____,

Words are sounds, Sounds are vibrations.Vibrations are energy, and Modern String theory derives that ALL matter
is vibrating energy.so E=mc^2

If you want to get even
deeper, think about this --

Singularity is also 100% compatiable
with our Religous belief of "Becoming ONE with God".

200 word
limit,Some religous folks will not listen or believe anything I have to
say anyway, they take things literally, so there is no evolution, no
space time continuum, no blackholes, no whiteholes, the earth is flat, the
center of the univers, only 6,000 years old, and the flood covered the earth
35,000 feet deeper than it is now.

I don't use Scriptures for
science books.I don't use Science for Salvation.

IF God is who I believe he is... he understands science to the point that he can
control natural forces and the universe in ways we can't comprehend in our
current mortal state.

Even smart people like Stephen Hawking are
infantile compared to his understanding of science. No mortal (in our short
lives) even if we dedicate our whole short life to learning everything the
science we understand to this point and beyond... could even approach his level
of understanding of sciences we haven't even discovered yet.

===

How long has God been studying and using science and natural
forces... Eternity???

So I would assume he knows more than we do.
Even the smartest of us are still "children", to him. And our
understanding of science is like that of a child, when compared to his.

===

I believe that after this life, not only do we have an eternity
to learn more about science... but our minds will also be "quickened"...
meaning we can understand things that our mortal brains are not equipped to
understand in our current state...

Now - let me show you were I come from on some
of our other arguements.

1. Do you believe we will use magic or
Science to create our own worlds?a. I think we will use Science -- needing
to learn about climates, heat, old, pressures, fluid dynamics, atmospheric
layers, humidity, dew points, etc.

2. Just like fmailies and getting
along with others, Eco-systems and balance in nature is our #2 list of
things to learn, know, and do here.

3. Polluting, emitting
un-natural substances and skewing the fragile balancee in the enviroment will
lead to our own GLORY or Destruction.

4. This is OUR Celestial
Kingdom, we either make it our break it ourselves --no magic pixie-dust to clean
it up.

5. Understanding God's laws is more than just 10
commandments.

This Earth is a Temple -- aka, root word, Template.Patterned after others where we used to live.

We will [terra-form]
others in the Future.but, no until AFTER we learn how to tend, take
care, and are found worthy of the one we already have.

Those who reject theology and accept science only are more like those who lived
in the "dark ages" than they might want to think. Back then, the common
view was that the sun orbited the earth. Now, those who reject God want to take
His place. They want our thoughts to orbit their thoughts. They think that
because they can "think" that their thoughts are more profound than the
thoughts of their Creator, our Father in Heaven.

It's time to
get over ourselves. Just because we have begun to gain a rudimentary
understanding of a small part of science, does not mean that we have become
experts.

Our Creator is omniscient. He knows EVERYTHING. He is not
limited to know only what we know. You would think that "scientists"
would respect pure knowledge, but they want everything to revolve around their
way of thinking. The word for that is "luddite".

" . . . a recent poll found that a majority of Americans is "not
too" or "not at all" confident that "the universe began 13.8
billion years ago with a big bang."

I doubt that most
scientists would bet on that time frame being accurate to within a billion
years. That conclusion results from measuring a specific phenomenon. But who
knows what other undiscovered phenomena might exist that could eventually
measure the age of the universe more accurately.

Scientists
don't pretend to know exactly when the universe began. The 13.8 billion
year number is a best estimate based on available technology. Forty years ago,
available measuring technology suggested the age of the universe to be closer to
5 billion years.

And then of course, there's the whole matter of
what makes up the universe and the time-space continuum. Can we even conceive of
time and space or anything or nothing before the Universe with its time and
space ever existed?

Yes, I'm not surprised that reasonable
people would doubt such a specific claim regarding the origin of everything. In
fact, it seems overly-presumptuous of mere mortal humans to even make such a
claim.

There is a simple dividing line that has been well known for hundreds of years:
Science is concerned with the tangible, the testable (by experiment), the
observable, while Religion is concerned with the supernatural (not tangible or
physically testable).

GaryO: "I doubt that most scientists would bet on that time frame being
accurate to within a billion years. That conclusion results from measuring a
specific phenomenon. But who knows what other undiscovered phenomena might exist
that could eventually measure the age of the universe more accurately."

Your doubts are unsupported by any real evidence. What the many
independently validated lines of objective evidence _do_ show is that the
universe began 13.8 billion years ago, +/- ~50 million years.

As a
kid I remember reading that the age of the universe as 10-20 billion years. In
college it was estimated at 12-18 billion years. Later, the estimate was put
right around 15 billion. The error bars are shrinking, not getting bigger.

But suppose that somehow you're right and the current estimate is
off by 3 billion years, meaning the universe was 10 or 17 billion years old. How
does that in any way change the fact that a belief in a 6,000 year old universe
is the equivalent of claiming that the driving distance between SLC and Miami is
6 feet?

I have no problem with people who view science as the "practice of
revealing God's laws", but the minute you try to refute the
observations of science solely on the basis of religion, IMHO, you are skating
on thin ice.